I am glad to announce publishing of the first issue of d/SEAS Working Papers; - the new journal of Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche Aziendali e Statistiche dell'Università degli Studi di Palermo [d/SAEAS for short]. It gathers eight papers in all reseach fields of the d/SEAS: economics, law, business & managment, sociology, statistics. The aim of the SWPs is to share with a wide audience of academics, practi­tioners and policy makers original research in the above said research fields. I hope our Inaugural issue encourages the members of dSEAS, as well as all visitors, phD students, participants in conferences and workshops organized by the dSEAS to submit their papers to the SWPs and so being active part in the sharing of a free knowledge as it is in the spirit of academic community and that readers will find this new publication useful for their purposes. The d/SEAS Working Papers aims to be an active space for discussion as well: -for this reason it is possible, by registering, to interact through platform with the authors of the papers.

This Inaugural Issue publishes:

University student talent: the real driver for performance? by Giovanni Boscaino and Giada Adelfio about the university student performance, and its measurement. It investigates the role of a latent variable that can take into account the student motivation, aptitude, and abilities, here conveniently called talent and the results, they got through a random effect Quantile Regression on a new measure of Italian student performance, seems to highlight the main role of the talent).

Credit demand and supply shocks in Italy during the Great Recession, by Andrea Cipollini and Fabio Parla, uses Structural VAR analysis to disentangle credit demand and supply shocks and their effect on real economic activity in Italy during the 2008-2014 crisis period observinmg data at annual frequency for each of 103 Italian provinces. The empirical findings suggest a more important role of credit supply shocks in shaping the level of real economic activity. Furthermore, the results show that credit crunch hits the North of Italy less than the remaining macro-regions, especially the South-Italy.

Saving process within a zero waste strategy in Sicily: a system dynamics approach, by Andrea Cuccia, shows implementation of a zero waste strategy in a small municipality in Sicily. By building up a SD model it figure out how saving process connected to the decrease of amount of waste piled up in the landfill, has been boosting this virtuous cycle, which is bound to cope with the citizens claims about environmental care and lower tax burden level.

Some features of deindustrialisation in EU15 during the period 1999-2004: a multivariate analysis, by Maria Davì, examines the causes and the different modalities of deindustrialisation process closely with reference to 13 of the first EU15 countries. According to this essay the estimates indicate that the main factors responsible of the dynamics of deindustrialisation have been efficiency and the scale of production processes in various manufacturing activities.

Leisure, Social Capital and Life Turns in Deviant Youth, by Fabio Massimo Lo Verde, investigates the issues of the production of social capital in a specific area of everyday life such as leisure time and the different socio-cultural contexts in Italy. The conclusion it reaches offers three metaphors for understanding the trends of leisure time and sociability.

A recap on Linear Mixed Models and their hat-matrices, by Gianfranco Lovison and Mariangela Sciandra, has a twofold goal: provides a recap of Linear Mixed Models (LMMs  focusing on the derivation of theoretical results on estimation of LMMs and, on the other hand, it discusses various definitions that are available in the literature for the hat-matrix of Linear Mixed Models, showing their limitations and proving their equivalence.

Does regulatory regime matter for bank risktaking? A comparative analysis of US and Canada is a working paper presented by Sana Mohsni and Isaac Otchere at a seminar of ours Department. Our guest authors compare banking structure in the US e in Canada in the the wake of the worst financial crisis in 2008.Their analysis shows that entry restrictions, which create concentrated banking structure, restrictions relating to capital, liquidity and activities, and strong supervisory power and discipline positively related to the z-score, suggesting that these factors constrain excessive risk taking by Canadian banks.

Fabrizio Piraino’s Ideas for a new reading of the law regulation of internet service providers addresses the issue of the so called internet service provider's liability under artt. 12-14 dir. 00/31, with specific regard to the violations of copyright. The study aims at demonstrating that European Law on ISP is not a law on tort, but regulates a sphere of lawful action in favor of internet service providers. The analysis of the Court of Justice's case-law reveals that the primary remedy against offenses committed on the internet is an injunction, while damages are only a secondary relief. This confirms the hypothesis that artt. 12-14 dir. 00/31 draw the perimeter of the legitimate activity of the internet service provider. The essay ends with a re-interpretation of the Italian provisions set forth at artt. 14-16 d.l gs. 70/2003 in order to align them, with the European directive, especially with regard to the hosting performance rules.

The editor in chief
Calogero Massimo Cammalleri